I spent a few years here in Memphis, in the late '70s and early '80s, where I was studying a lot of country blues players and their styles. So it seems like every record I'll do, I will appropriate these blues styles that I remember.

Everywhere I go, there are all these Big Star freaks, and they’re nice little guys who are usually in college, and they’re kind of lonely and misunderstood, learning to play guitar.

Drugs were pretty easy to quit taking. I was never addicted to anything to begin with. But then, liquor - I had to wait about another six years before I finally got around to quitting that. I'm sure glad I did.

If you're writing anything decent, it's in you, it's your spirit coming out. If it's not an expression of how a person genuinely feels, then it's not a good song done with any conviction.

The more alone I am, the more focused I can get. I've written things with people, some of which I liked and others I think are total travesties. Collaborating is trying to make a piece of music and get someone else to come up with the ideas. What's the fun of that?

Sometimes I'll come up with a lick that I really love, and I'll try to put the right words to it for years. Suddenly something comes to me that works just right.

I never thought of myself as being a good songwriter. There are a ton of other people that are good songwriters, but I don't think I'm in the club. What I do well is perform, sometimes sing pretty good, and accompany myself well and arrange fairly well.